Temple Mount Model at Christ Church, Jerusalem

The model was made 140 years ago by the architect and archaeologist Conrad Schick, whose work in Jerusalem was supported by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. Its details reveal that its creator had access to places where no Western scholar of his day was allowed.

"Every time they dug a hole in the Temple Mount, he ran there to examine it," said Prof. Haim Goren of Tel Hai Academic College, an expert on Schick's work.

Schick, who made the model in an orphanage's woodworking workshop where he taught, crafted it for display at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. It's four meters long and three meters wide.

Like many of Schick's models, this one had dozens of parts that could be dismantled to show inner, underground areas.

"It's not only beautiful, it's also an important research tool, because it was built by a man who visited every pit and understood the topography in a way we can't fathom," Gibson said.